The Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident may be becoming a distant and inconvenient memory for many, including the governor of Hokkaido Harumi Takahashi, a former elite bureaucrat in what is now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
She has just approved the formal re-start of Tomari Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 3, despite the protest literally from all over the country. It will be the first re-start of any reactor that has been in maintenance or shut-down after the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, and Tomari Reactor 3 will simply switch from the long (since March) post-maintenance test-run to full commercial run without undergoing the so-called "stress test" after the Nuclear Safety Commission rubber-stamped and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency immediately approved.
Governor Takahashi has been receiving campaign donations from executives at Hokkaido Electric Power Company (link in Japanese), and she says she will continue to do so as she sees nothing technically wrong with it.
Reactor 3 of Tomari Nuclear Power Plant was designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and will use MOX-fuel, i.e. in Japanese English, "pluthermal". MOX-fuel will come from France, according to HEPCO (that's Hokkaido Electric Power Company)'s "Pluthermal" webpage (in Japanese).
The Hokkaido prefectural government held a special committee meeting on August 16 to decide whether to allow the re-start of Tomari Reactor 3; the meeting lasted well into the late night, where even the committee members shouted at her that she had already made up her mind and was just trying to fit everything with that conclusion, according to FNN News (in Japanese).
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